Looking Deeply at Laos/1

Please take a look at this video by Legacies of War. It will require 2 minutes and 40 seconds of your time. Next, consider, Thich Nhat Hanh’s 4th precept of the Tiep Hien Order:  Do…

Composed after Listening to NPR

I was just listening to an NPR story about 15th anniversary of the U.S. bringing down Saddam Hussein’s regime. An  Iraqi Kurdish journalist was interviewed.  He said he was happy to see the US troops…

“Just Mow ‘Em Down”

Next month will mark the 50th anniversary of one of the very few well-known atrocities committed by U.S. forces in Vietnam. Compare mainstream coverage of this anniversary with the following … Michael Bilton and Kevin…

Unpronounceable Words

George McGovern and William R. Polk, Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now March 2007 Dear Andrew, I have finished McGovern and Polk’s primer on the catastrophe in Iraq and how to get…

Writing for the Future

In winter-spring of 2015 I read every book I could find in English translation of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.  She’s another writer who would be at home in the world of Kafka’s Axe (“But we…